The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1887-11-15

act 50 thoughtiessly OF the earnest
World a.! about them. That is a cruel parent
Who guenches any Oi the light in a child soul.
Instead 81 arresting its sportfulness, 90 forth
ai.d help him truudle tie hoop, and fly the
Sit-, ana build the snow castle. Those Shout
Hel- Jie tco little 10 carry a burden that brow
Is 20 yruAg o be wriukled those feet are too
5iglgutiE TO % along a a funeral pace. God
h.ce ,bcir young hearts Now is the time Tor
then. ~ be .pJiiful. Let them romp and sing
Gid laugh. and 20 Witli a rus n and hurrah. In
this way they gathered up a surplus OF energy
Tor future life For the child that walks
though they We're weights and sitting down by
the hour il mopiug and grDmbling, | prophesy
life Of utter inanimotion and discomfort.
Sooner hush the robins III the air till tl.ev are
silent as a bat and lecture the friskin9 lambs
on the hillside until they walk like old sheep,
rather than put eXhiarant childhood III the
stocks
Tie fifth error in the training of.childhood is
the posiponement Of its moral culture until too
late. Multitudes of children because Of their
precocity have been urged into depths of study
where they ought not to 90, and their ntellects
have been overburdened and overstraned and
battered to pieces against Latin grammars and
algebras, and coming forth into practical life
they will hardly rise to mediocrity, and there
is now n stuifng and cramlng system OF edu-
cation in the schools of our country that is
beautiful TO the teachers who have to enforce
it, and destructive to the children who
must submit to the process. You find children
at nine and ten years of age, with school les
sons only appropriate for children OF fifteen
Ii children are kept in school and studying
from nine to three CLOCK, no home study eX-
cept music ought to be required of them Six
hours of study is enough for any child. The
rest of the day ought to be devoted to recrea-
ton and pure fun. But you cannot begin TOO
early the moral culture of a child, or on too
upon your own life and remember what
mighty impressions were made
upon You at five or six years of age Oh, that
Child does not sit so silent during your CONVEX
sation to be influenced by it. You say he
does not understand. Although much of your
phraseology is beyond his grasp, he is gather
ing up from your talk influences which will
affect his immortal destiny From the ques-
ton he asks You 50 long afterward you find he
understood all about what you were saying.
You think the child does not appreciates that
beautiful cloud but its most delicate lines are
reflected into the very depths of the youthful
nature and score of years from now
you will see the shadow of that cloud in the
tastes and refnements developed The song
with which You sing that child to sleep will
echo through all its life, and ring back from
the very arches of heaven. think that often
The first seven years of a chld's life decides
whether il shall be irasciblc, waspislI, rude,
false, hypocritical, or gentle, truthful, frank,
obedient, honest, and Christian The pres
ent generations of men will pass off very much
as they are now. Although the gospel is offer
drunkards, thieves die thieves, libertines die
libertincs Therefore to the youth we turn.
Before they sow wild oats get them to
sow wheat and barley. You fill the bushel
measure with good corn, and there will be no
room for huSks Glorious Alfred Goodman
was converted at ten years of age. At Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, during the progress Of q relig-
ious meeting in the Methodist church, while
many We're kneeling at the foot of the altar,
this boy knelt in a corner of the church all by
hi1tgqlt q rt
saving others o, wilt thou not save me?" A
Presbyterian elder knelt beside him and led
him into the light. Enthroned Alfred
Goodman! Tell me from the
skies, were you converted too early? But
L cannot hear his answer. 1t is overpowered
by the huzZas OF the tens OF thousands who
were brought to God through his ministry
Isaac Watts, the great Christian poet was
conyertedat nine years of age. Robert Hall,
the great Baptist evangelist, was converted at
twelve years of age. Jonathan Edwards, the
greatest OF American logicianS, was converted
at seven years of age.
Oh for one generation of holy men and
women Shall it be the next? Fathers and
mothers, you under God are to decide whether
from your families shall go forth towards, in
ebriatcs, counterfeiters, blaSphemers, and
whether there shall be those bearing your i'm
age and carrying your name fostering in the
low hants of vice, and hounderng in dssipa-
tion and making the midnight OF their lives
horrid with long howl of ruin, or whether
from your family affairs shall come the Christ
ians, the refomers, the teachers, the minis
ters OF Christ, the comforters of the troubled,
the healers of the SICK the enacterS of good
laws, the founders Of charitable institutions,
and great many who shall in the humber
spheres of toll and usefulness serve God and
the best interests of the human race.
You cannot as parents shrk the response
bility. God has charged you with a mission
and all the thrones of heaven are waiting to
see whether you will do your duty. We must
not forget that it is not s0much what we teach
our children rs what we are in their presence,
We wish them to be better than we are, but
the probability is that they will only be re-
productions of our own character. German
literature has much TO say of the Spectre of
Broken" Among those mountains travellers
in certain conditions of the atmosphere
see themselves copied on a gigantic
scale in the clouds. At first the trav-
clcrs do not realize that il Is
themselves on larger scale. When they lift
a hand or move the head this monster spectre
does the same, aud with such enlargement of
proportions that the scene is most exciting,
and thousands have gone to that place lust to
behold the spectre of Broken The probabil-
ity is that some of oar faults which we con-
slider small and insignificant, If we do not put
an end to them, will be copied on a larger
scale in the lives of our children, and perhaps
dilated aud exaggerated into spectral proper
tions You need not go as far off
rs the Broken to see that pro-
cess. Ihe nfSt tulng IN importance In
the education of our children is TO make our
selves, by the grace of God, tit examples to be
copied, The day will come when YOU must
confront that child not in the church pew on
a calm Sabbath, but amid the CONSERVATION of
the rising dead, and the flying heavens, and,a
burning world. From your side that son or
daughter, bone of your bone heart of your
heart, the fathers brow his brow, the mothers
eye his eye, shall so forth to an eternal desti-
ny. What will be your joy if at last you hear
their feet in the same golden highway and
hear their voices in the same rapturouS song,
Illustrations, while the eternal ages last,
OF what faithful parent could, under
Cod accomplish. | was reading of
mother who, dying, had all her children about
her, and took each one of them by the hand
aud asked them 10 meet her in heaven. and
w1th tears and sobS such as those only know
who have stood by the death-bed of q good old
mother They al promised, But there was
young man of nineteen who had been very
wild and reckless, and hard. and proud, and
when She took his hand she said ''Now. my
boy, l want You 10 promise me before 1 die
that You will become a Christian and meet me
in heaven" The young man made no answer
for there was So much for him to give up if he
made and kept such promise
But the aged mother persisted in saving: